"What the...oh my god, hahaha, ewwww." I looked at the doorway.
"Hey Rob."
Nothing.
"Rob?"
No answer.
"Rob!"
Yup, definitely ignoring me.
...
"ROOOOOOOOB-"
"What!?" Felawa finally shouted back, entering the room.
"Oh hey. What's up? Need something?" He sighed and begun to leave the room before I added an additional, "Oh, well, while you're here, you should take a look at this." I sat up and shifted in my bunk, dangling my legs over the side. I angled my arm shortly after so I could show him what was displayed on my omni-tool.
"Ah dude, what the hell!?" he yelled back jerking his head away.
"I know right?" I replied, glancing at the image one more time before closing it. "And that was just the cover. Can you imagine what was actually inside it? Fornax's Elcor issue. Twenty different poses of Elcor just-"
"Dude."
"Oh. Really? That bad? You telling me you've never seen a-"
"Rod...you know I can't be talking with you right now man."
"...really?"
"I'm sorry dude. But you heard Shepard's orders. I'm not allowed to 'fraternize' with..." he trailed off, scratching his ear. "...Rod. If you had just told the truth from the beginning dude, none of this-"
"If you don't want to talk, Fine. You can go back to standing outside the door and staring at the floor."
He lingered in the room for a couple of seconds before letting out a sigh and leaving.
I just stayed where I was, sitting there on the edge of the bed. He didn't happen to be the only one giving me the silent treatment, though most of the others were doing it voluntarily. I suppose getting dragged around the ship in omni-cuffs lost me whatever cred I had. Most looked the other way when I passed them now, ignored me whenever I sat down next to them for lunch...some even gave me the stink eye. Being shunned by your peers...I'm not gonna lie, it kind of hurt. And as the ship's new pariah, I'm pretty sure I knew now how Garrus and Liara originally felt. And I'd talk to them about it too if they weren't also in on it.
It's not like half of them even knew what went down. All they saw was Shepard dragging me across the ship in cuffs, and that Felawa was assigned to monitor me afterwards. And that was half of the problem for me. Lack of privacy. Felawa had been permanently assigned by Shepard to be my personal babysitter. I couldn't take two steps without the guy trailing me. Although to be fair, if it wasn't for him, I might still have those omni-cuffs on...I mean, after lying to Shepard, I had only had them for another day before Shepard allowed Felawa to take them off, as he didn't want to spoon-feed me anymore. As in literally spoon feed me. Man was that degrading. But in that short time I was in them...
Everything I had gained was lost in a single moment. The freedom I had on the ship. The bonds I was making with the crew of the Normandy. What little respect I had garnered...gone. All gone. And as if all that wasn't enough, now I even had to contend with my own god damn imagination.
There WERE a few inconsistencies in my story...like EVERY FUCKING THING THAT I SAID.
Oh no Shepard, I totally work for the Broker. You gotta believe me. I was just a poor orphan taken from the hard streets of Earth. But I did so well on my SATs though that I got to be the Shadow Broker's protégé. His heir to be. Honest. And the reason I know all the things I do is because I have a chip implanted in my BRAIN that tells me them.
Good job Shield. Airtight Alibi.
I literally face palmed. Then I moved my hand down to cover my mouth.
It all just kind of flowed out of my mouth didn't it? The next thing after the next thing and...Dammit. I fucked up. I fucked up so bad. I mean...it's not like anyone could say I'm lying. Hell, I practically convinced myself with how well I was spinning that bullshit. But...god. I'm in so deep...
...How deep are you?
...I'm in so deep...even Adele can't roll in this.
Then the sound of my omni-tool resonated in my earpiece.
(Continuing Playtrack 89...Music by Artist Adele. Rolling in the Deep. (C) 2010 XL Recordings Ltd.)
Adele - Rolling in the Deep (2:55) [Voice so rich MMM. Who don't love themselves some Adele.]
What.
(I can't help feeliiiing...
We could have had it alllllllll)
God Dammit.
(*You're gonna wish, you never had met me*
Rolling in the deeeeeeeeep-
*Tears are gonna fall, rolling in the deep*)
I quickly powered the omni-tool's interface back on and opened the application.
(Could have had it alllllll-)
The song abruptly stopped after I punched in the commands.
...I really need to figure out how to stop it from doing that.
I gave up on the idea though after several minutes of messing with the app's settings. The feature wasn't mentioned in the manual. But in any case...Adele was right. I could have had it all.
But we just HAD to have a cool back story to get everyone to like me didn't we. And now like in the song, tears are gonna fall. My tears.
I laid back down on the bunk bed as I began to actually debate the necessity of the lie.
Well...I didn't necessarily say I worked for the Shadow Broker because it was kewl...I did it because how the hell else would I have been able to use my friggin omniscience? I mean, these motherfuckers have still been asking me how I know all this shit every time I open my god damn mouth.
It was an obligatory decision I had to make. A risk I had to take.
And was it really even a risk in the first place? How the hell was I supposed to know the Broker would even be aware of me, let alone actually care? ...I couldn't have.
But now I could be sure as hell that the Broker would only continue his meddling, especially with what information I had just relayed to Shepard. Telling her about his original alias as Operative Kechlu and taking the original Broker's place. Or semi-original. I doubt the guy he killed was the first.
Anyways, I could be sure that when he hears about all that, he'll be piiiiiissed.
Although I should be glad I only told them about that. It was so hard to resist telling her more. How he was an eight-eyed Yahg from Parnack. About his little ship on Hagalaz, somewhere in the Shadow Sea. Although whether Hagalaz was a planet or solar system, I didn't know. I just remembered the name. And why might you ask, hadn't I told her all this at the time?
Because A...we ain't got time to take him down. We still need to come for Saren first. And we haven't done Feros...or Noveria...or...oh my god. We haven't done anything to investigate Saren since Therum. What the shit!?
You could diddle around all day in the game but if this was real time...
We could actually fail to stop him...couldn't we? Run out of time? He ends up finding the Conduit first because all we do are side missions and then whoopsie, guess the Reapers are already here?
...would that even be my fault? Shepard's the one giving the orders to do them, wasting our time...although the only reason why is because she wasn't even given specific planets to investigate. Just entire star clusters where Geth were supposedly spotted. How the hell would she know where to look? She wasn't even given a specific system!
So...it WOULD be my fault because I knew where they all are. Dammit. I mean...hell. That was one of the only reasons why I had been able to talk my way out of being locked in the air...lock. Telling her about the Geth on Feros.
The down low on the Thorian and Exogeni's fucked up experiment had still been withheld though. Because if I told her about them...what would happen?
Would she immediately try to talk to Fai Dan about it? Would the thrall attack her immediately or just deny it? ...well he'd definitely attack us if we tried to move the cargo thing off the hole to the Thorian's lair. If she even believed me. And then since we ignored the Exogeni bridge, we wouldn't have the special gas grenades to subdue them...
I wasn't about to have Shepard slaughter innocent civilians. Although hell, she'd probably kill them anyway even if the grenades were an option.
Dammit. Another thing to worry about.
I massaged my head, turning on my side.
And then you still had Exogeni and the Geth ship to worry about. So that would be why it's probably best to let it play out as it did in the game...and OH RIGHT. And B, same reason as the Shadow Broker! If we, by the smallest chance, did decide to take him out this early...what would Liara angst over for the next two years? Who would...I guess that's really all he does in game. Lair of the Shadow Broker. Although he is responsible for Wilson killing everyone during the prologue of ME2. Something we probably want to prevent...although...
They were Cerberus. And who knows how things would fly if Shepard didn't wake up when she did.
Would she have been awake in time for Freedom's Progress if Wilson didn't do that? And if we did stop the Broker...would Liara learn about whoever else would try to steal Shepard's body? Stop them in time? IF anyone steals Shepard's dead body...YO, why would there even be a body in the first place?! Oh dammit, do I have to weigh the decision of letting her die too?!
Too many damn variables. One change and bloop, the one thing I've got going for me is gone. Knowledge about a non-existent plot would be of zero worth.
Although...ah we've been here before dammit. What's the point of having all this info if you're not going to use it!?
...
Because of the unknown. Shepard stops the Reapers by the series of events in game. I'm the loose cannon. I was the one who could affect the outcome. Even if she didn't believe half, or hell, any of the stuff I could tell her, it could still affect the plot. Especially if some of it started coming true. It could affect her psyche, what she believes, cause her to make a different choice not available in the game. A decision that results in the Reapers winning.
...But by that logic...
I let the thought simmer for a moment.
I was the one who told her about Feros. And if there was a timer for this game...I at least know we should take down Saren before 2184...then my intel would actually be valuable. She'd need the information to stop him. And in that case I SHOULD stick around.
I stared at the dark ceiling of the bunk room. I began to pick up the faint sound of snoring, coming from two beds over.
...where the hell was I even going with this?
...you...were...weighing the backstory.
Oh right. The backstory...
Then I snapped back to my current situation.
Thinking too far ahead. Mass Effect 1. That's it. Get through it with everything as great as possible. Help Shepard find the Conduit. Stop Saren. That's it.
Then the main hole in my plan came to light.
...Why don't I just tell her it's on Ilos? Say I could tell what the place in my vision was. Liara could mind meld with us and agree. Or not. It didn't really matter. We could skip Feros, Noveria, and...Virmire.
My heart sank realizing I hadn't put any thought to that.
So yeah, definitely want to do that. What reasons could I...
Then I realized it was the same situation as Hagalaz. I didn't know where Ilos would exactly be.
In the Terminus systems but...which specific system? Oh Dammit. And the whole entire point of Noveria was learning how to get to Ilos. Where the Mu relay is. So we'd at least have to do that.
Then the train kept going, and it didn't seem to have a caboose.
And then Saren would still have a Krogan cure for the genophage on Virmire. So even if all this went down, we did Noveria, found Ilos, went into the Conduit...LOL. It'd be pointless because it'd just get us to the damn Citadel. Which we can fly to whenever. Unless he went through, it'd be...pointless. In any case, there would still be that cure on Virmire too...
But would it matter?
...yes. If Wrex or Eve aren't heading the Krogan, then it'd be a very bad idea.
...Mass Effect 1. Focus on Mass Effect 1.
I sighed, dropping whatever semblance of a plan I had.
Just go to Feros. Get through it. Mention Noveria. Get through it. And as for Virmire...we'll think of something.
As of right now though, Shepard wasn't going to let me be on the ground team...anywhere. So I still had to plan on how I would even fix that. And decide if I even wanted too. In fact, I don't know why I was worrying about all this when I wasn't even sure if I was still going to be allowed to stay on the ship or not.
I raised my arm closer to my face and turned my omni-tool's haptic interface back on, deciding to bide my time doing something else.
I'll just think of something once we get there.
The one thing I could be grateful for that came out of Shepard's-
Validated.
-witch hunt was Kaidan scanning my omni-tool afterwards to check if it had any surveillance programs installed on it. Apparently he just found a shit ton of malware, none of it being what they were looking for. It didn't really surprise me with how shitty my omni-tool's processing power was compared to everyone else's. It took me ten minutes to load a leaked video of Shepard punching out Khalisah when it only took Garrus ten seconds...Anyways. Shepard told Kaidan to remove them all just to be sure none of them had any data mining software embedded in them. She was really thorough on checking the rest of my stuff too.
In any case, once he did, my omni-tool was practically new. It had faster download speeds, no more adware or popups, and I found that the extranet was much, much, MUCH better than I actually thought it was with all this done. Instead of the handful of songs from the 20th century I had found before, I now found entire archives of them. On a hunch, I searched for how to mod your gun again, and instead of a thousand ads this time around, I got videos containing actual demonstrations (not that they helped). I even looked up Shepard's name again for funsies, and found that the search returned a wide variety of information on her. Instead of recent news articles that were there because their news sources payed an obscene amount for adspace, I got generic personal information about her and even hits for military actions she was involved in.
So this was what I had been preoccupied with for the last two days after the confrontation. Downloading new music. Watching new movies from the future. All that other ish. All thanks to my new and improved extranet connection, and its ever present online advertising and connection limiters gone. I was it like switching your provider from ClearWire to Google Fiber.
However, another half-hour of lying in bed and I was bored again. Deciding it was long overdue, I hopped off the bed and headed towards the bathroom. And as soon as I left the bunk room, surprise surprise, Felawa was tailing me. Until I entered the bathroom that is. I was relieved that he didn't take his job too seriously. After hanging a towel over the curtain rack, I hopped into the small shower. By the time I was done, I was hoping Shepard would be back from taking care of Saleon. I was disappointed in not accompanying them for that, but it was the price I paid for my mistake. As the warm water began to trickle against my back, I realized why I couldn't just talk to Shepard about it anyway though. Inform her about it. Prep her for it.
The Thorian that is.
Ooh...could we actually become thralls if we waste too much time?!
Another mind fuck.
...dammit. This sucks.
"Commander, our docking tubes have just locked. The Captain of the SSV Somme is granting us permission to board," he spoke into the intercom.
"Tell him to have a party ready for the exchange."
Joker widened his eyes in surprise, craning his neck over his shoulder in response to the voice. He didn't realize she was already on the bridge. "Aye, aye Commander!" He turned his attention back toward the ship's controls, punching in the commands to open the air lock. He could hear a loud hiss escape from it as it opened, the inside of the chamber and docking tube equalizing with the interior of the bridge.
He then swiveled his chair around to face the group standing behind Shepard. The Commander herself was gazing into the docking tube connecting the two ships, leaving Kaidan and Hector the responsibility of watching over the guy they were trading off.
Originally, the mission was to save an endangered scientist down below. How Shepard had interpreted that as murder him, Joker had no idea. She probably had a good reason though. The man that the landing party had brought back up currently stood next to Emerson, clad in tannish armor. He had it pegged as the Assassin model made by Elkoss Combine. Which he only knew from how many times Jenkins had shown him it in that damn catalog.
Damn had Jenkins been enthusiastic about that gear...good ol' Rick.
He scratched his beard reminiscing about him when Shepard gave a sudden salute to someone inside the docking tube.
"Commander," a voice resonated from it. "Is that him?"
"Yes it is," she replied, turning around and motioning to the new guy. "Toombs, these men will take it from here. You'll be brought to Arcturus Station, where you can get the help you need."
"I don't need any help. Not anymore," the man replied.
"Nonetheless, we'd still like to learn what happened to you...Corporal," the disembodied voice echoed from the docking tube.
He began to reluctantly trudge into it, towards the voice. But then he stopped, and looked at Shepard with his mouth slightly agape, seeming like he wanted to say something else. If he had though, the man named Toombs opted not to, deciding rather to just turn back around and continue onward.
It was at this point Joker noticed Shield running up the CiC toward them all.
"Take care Commander," the marine inside the tube said one more time.
"You too," she replied before turning to Shield who had just stopped moments later in front of her, bent over heaving. His hair seemed slick, face covered in perspiration. Or what looked like it. Either he got winded on the short trip up or had just gotten out of the shower. Then Joker noticed Rob jogging through the CiC after him.
"What do you want Shield?"
"COMMANDER?! COMMANDER!"
Everyone jerked their heads toward the voice.
"Get him out of here!" Shepard shouted.
"I'm trying to Commander!" the marine inside the docking mechanism responded.
"COMMAN-"
Joker pushed a button on his console, closing the airlock and silencing the lunatic. Everyone stood in silence for a moment shocked by the turn of event.
"Uh, Comman...Shepard...shouldn't we have seen what he wanted?" Emerson finally asked, breaking it.
"I wasn't in the mood to deal with his baggage anymore," Shepard responded, obviously annoyed by the ordeal. "And I'm sure as hell not in the mood to deal with you," she now replied, turning to Shield.
"I just needed to talk to you about Feros," he replied, raising his hands in defense. Then he pointed one of them at the airlock. "...but who was that?"
"A former Alliance Corporal by the name of Toombs," Emerson replied.
"And none of your business," Shepard finished.
"Toombs?" he asked in surprise. "I thought you guys were investigating Dr. Saleon's ship for Garrus."
"We did," Emerson replied again.
"What? When?"
"I think we docked with the MSV Fedele at nineteen hundred yesterday," Kaidan told him this time.
"That Salarian Dr. Saleon was making these grotesque zombies as part of his experiments on it. And then when we found him, the guy had the gall to say he didn't have anything to do with them!" Emerson added. "Even though he had one lying right behind him on the operating table!"
"You're both dismissed," Shepard quickly followed, cutting off the conversation. The two soldiers decided to nod in response and left the bridge. Felawa who had just joined the group when she gave the command, had a look of dejection, and ended up following the two marines back down to the CiC too. Before addressing Shield again, the Commander shot a glare at Joker.
"Don't mind me," he let slip as he swiveled his seat back around to the ship's bow.
"...So what do you want?" he heard Shepard ask Shield immediately after.
Before Shield could respond, Joker's attention was drawn to a flashing light on the Normandy's controls.
"Hey Commander, we've got an incoming call!"
"I think I can give a guess as to who," she replied.
Glancing at the transponding signal of the message, he could tell it wasn't coming from the Fifth Fleet. "It's not Hackett Commander."
"Put it through," Joker heard her immediately shoot back. The sound of her clomping boots indicated she was already making her way to the galaxy map. He could hear the footsteps of Shield quietly following her.
"Captain?" she replied shocked. Shepard had no idea that he planned to call or why he had. Although that wasn't exactly true, as she did have some guesses. But the Commander quickly recomposed herself regardless. "To what do I owe the honor sir?"
"We've just received an update on Saren's movements," Anderson responded.
"Where."
"The first Geth sightings reported after Eden Prime were in the Horsehead Nebula. We sent a group in to the region to follow up on them. Our eyes in the area finally spotted the Geth and caught up with their ships a week ago. They followed them through ten star systems before the Geth frigates they were tailing finally noticed and turned on them."
"What happened?"
"Our boys crippled the Geth ships. Boarded and cleared them. Besides a few destroyed electronics though, nothing else was found inside them. We believe the troops that the ships were carrying were already dropped off somewhere before the skirmish. And the last system they passed through was the Pax System."
"The Pax System?"
"You heard me. And that's not all Shepard. We've also gotten intel that an Asari Matriarch was recently spotted on Noveria; a planet that just so happens to be located in that particular star system. I'll give you three guesses as to who."
"Benezia."
"That's right. We believe she's there on Saren's behalf, and with an army of Geth at her back, there's no telling what she could do."
"Isn't Noveria a developed world?" she asked. "Where are all the reports of the Geth being there?"
"That's the odd thing. There are none. And to top that off, we can't investigate into it any further. The planet's privately chartered by the NDC holding company. They don't allow anyone other than their corporate sponsors to enter Port Hanshan. You have to be given special clearance to dock there."
"Or have the authority of a Council Spectre," Shepard concluded.
"My thoughts exactly. Shepard...even if you already had other leads, I just thought you should know. I don't think I have to say again that Saren is a mad man, and that anyone associated with him has to be stopped...of all the people that could be on this case, I'm glad it's you. I know you won't let us down. We'll talk next time you're on the Citadel. Over and out."
She ignored the eyes of those around her as she immediately began contemplating their next move.
So we do have a choice. Noveria or Feros. One suggested by Captain Anderson, where the right hand of Saren was currently known to be, and is looking for something with an army of Geth at her back. And on the other hand, we have a place given by someone who's every word is suspect, where an unknown quantity of Geth may or may not be heading for.
"Pressly," she addressed the man next to her, "Draw up a course for Noveria. Joker, take us back to the Kepler Relay."
"But Commander..." Joker started. "Our current position in Kepler is just a day away tops from Feros. Noveria will take at least-"
"You have your order Lieutenant. We're headed for Noveria. End of story."
"...aye aye Commander."
Shepard pushed off the galaxy map's railings and turned around to face Shield who was standing at the bottom of its steps.
"So, what did you want to tell me about Feros again?"
"...never mind," he replied staring at the ground. After a silent beat, he began walking away. And seeing this, Felawa jumped up from where he was sitting and followed Shield down the stairs.
Codex Entry:
Cerberus on Ontarom
/12:15/ Secure Comm Buoy #15895 / Encrypted / #1256 - DP - 101
Sender: Operative Caracosa
I have recently come into contact with a new source that has caused me to re-evaluate the 'Toombs Vendetta'. I learned that a Cerberus military cell was recently sent to the planet of Ontarom and landed at these coordinates attached to the file. If you're familiar with the contents of entry 17-AQ59251-18, you'll be aware that a remote science facility is located there, operated by one Doctor Wayne Gretzky. I believe these factors indicate that Doctor Wayne is the last missing scientist who worked on Alliance's Akuze project, and would give him his ties (and why he is of interest) to Cerberus. The Entry 25-ER18758-87 contains information on the recent escape of one Corporal Collin Toombs from the station Cerberus designates as 'the Depot'. We had originally believed that this man was responsible for the recent string of deaths of those tied to the Akuze project. We knew at what time Corporal Toombs had landed at Doctor Wayne's facility, which coincidentally was not minutes before Cerberus' Commando cell did. Use of a A-59 Mantis gunship to transport these commandos lead us to believe they were already planet side before making their approach.
In light of this new information, I believe that Toombs did NOT in fact, kill these scientists. For them to land four minutes after Toombs landed without being seen, the Cerberus Commandos would have to have been grounded on the planet before they approached, meaning their proximity to the facility would have had to already been extremely close. Another source tells us that witnesses reported Toombs being reluctant to kill Doctor Wayne when he had him at gun point. This behavior would be quite odd however if Corporal Toombs had already killed the other four scientists who had worked on the project beforehand. The fact that the Cerberus militants weren't already inside the facility lying in wait for Toombs indicates that they were never sent to protect the scientist. This is supplemented by the fact that they also only deployed to the facility after Toombs had arrived. This leads us to the conclusion that the Commandos were likely there not to protect, but to catch and silence both men. If this conclusion were true, then it would be Cerberus in fact who would be silencing these scientists that worked on the Akuze project, using the last remaining member as bait for it's other remaining loose end.
Mind, this is all conjecture, as there is no solid proof (as there never is with Cerberus) to prove this, but consider this: How did Toombs learn of Doctor Wayne's location? And if Doctor Wayne was not a member of the Akuze project, why were there Cerberus Commandos present in the area? What was the objective given then to the Cerberus commandos there in the first place? Even if my assumption is accurate, this only means a further analysis of the Akuze project is necessary, as the current results documented in it don't nearly necessitate the extremity of Cerberus' actions to keep it secret. The current status of the Cerberus Commando cell however is now defunct. One Alliance soldier by the name of Commander Jane Shepard landed in the time frame this was all occurring, destroying the entire Cerberus cell present, taking Corporal Toombs back into Alliance care, and killing Doctor Wayne herself. And this necessitates the further question...how did this Commander Shepard know what was occurring at this time? From where did she learn this operation was taking place? This is an issue I believe for Agent Gellix to further address.
I'll continue to provide updates on this scenario and whatever other events I continue to find pertaining to it. The Kepler Verge will continue to be kept under my close supervision.
Author's Notes:
I'll see if I can get another chapter out this week for this one's lateness. I apologize, things got pretty busy last week. Half of this chapter is Shield monologuing, so I'll definitely try to get things ramped back up by next chapter. Character development is important. Not that you'll find any here. And since I've forgotten to reply...
Lanny: As he still is and probably will be. Dude doesn't know how to stay out of trouble.
Black Humor: What you call unlucky, I call...no yeah, he's had a pretty rough time so far.
Mikey: That's actually a really good alibi. Unfortunately, Shield isn't that smart and went in a totally different and nonsensical direction. At this point, he's already dug himself halfway to China, and I can only assume that he's hoping (by continuing to lie) to dig himself out on the other side safe and sound.
WolfMan: Our Favorite character? That might be a stretch :). He'll certainly be in the doghouse following this turn of events.
GrimAdventures: Well to be fair, the Broker's interested in a LOT of things. Of course, it's still bad news broker for Shield.
FrankTrigg: Thank you for the kind words. I'm extremely glad to that you find the story enjoyable! As for the stats, no you're correct, they haven't been mentioned since Therum or what skills he placed them in. In retrospect, I probably should have displayed them in Chapter 18. I can promise they'll be mentioned fairly shortly.
FenDweller: OH you know it is. And it'll just keep getting thicker from here! [that's what she said]
In the Next Chapter: The Boys are back. And they're looking for trouble.
Tune in next time on Mass Effective: A Hero Made!